So here's a silly story. I drew these illustrations over a year ago for Katha as a part of a publication which compiled short stories written by school kids. The idea of illustrating a story written by a child sounded like so much fun. I wondered how close my drawings be to what the child pictured in his head. What would the child think when he saw my illustrations? Would he like them? What kind of a person would he picture me to be? Would I meet the child someday and talk about the story? It was all very exciting. So when Katha sent in a bunch of stories for me to pick from, I read each one with a lot of interest and finally picked one called Ramdhan's Flute, purely because I was plain impressed by the intellect of the child who'd written it! The choice of words, the pacing of the story, the thought behind the story was all very clever and in my head I was rather honoured to be drawing for this little kid.

All this, only to realise much later that the story had been pulled out of the second edition of the book because someone reported plagiarism. My first set of published illustrations yanked out of the book because the silly little kid copied a story to probably better it's chances of getting published. I want to pinch the child's ear and shove a small scolding into his head. Not because he copied a story. Not because my illustrations didn't get published. But because he didn't write a story of his own.

PS : Notice how the world child is so casually thrown around by someone who's now getting rather comfortable with her twenties. Twenty four to be precise. *Sigh*

The drawing in my previous post reminded me of this, so thought I'd put it up! So Chumbak is where I currently work. It's been six months since I joined them in Bangalore, and it's been quite a mad ride so far. Now that I've decided to blog more often, you'll see little nuggets of work and daily nonsense from Chumbak pop up on my blog every now and then :) This particular sketch was made for a giveaway mug for the first ever Brainstorming and Beer session Chumbak held with all it's designers to plan out their design scene for the next quarter. It was so much much fun, the session as well as scribbling this out! Especially because it's a lot of my favourite people on a mug :)

Also, while I'm on this post, a big shout out to Kaveri Goplakrishnan (The girl peppering her brain in the sketch) for general madness over the past five months. I dunno how I'd have managed without her at work! Here's to frustrated airdrop sketches, venting in the autos, daily giggles, 8tracks, stupidity, disgusting food habits, everyday stories, matching curtains, anthuriums, picking up kittens off the roads, purple turtles and the awesome mood lamps we shall both someday own.

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

I thought it would be apt to start with this as a continuation of my last post of over a year ago. Here are a few snippets of animation I did for my grad film, Ghar. I didn't end up working on it post graduation, and I died a little today when I found this lying in my hardisk all rusty and unfinished :( If you ask why, I'd say I've busy with Bechain Nagri. But the real reason is I didn't have the confidence to pull off an inde film all by myself. My set of storytelling, drawing and animating skills were in my head never enough to do justice to the story I was out to tell, and each time I'd sit to work on the film I'd keep holding myself back. Designing that character just once again, for the two hundredth and third time..maybe it would come out perfect this time?

I feel so silly thinking like that in retrospect. I wish I'd just finished the damn thing. These days, I try my best make sure I finish what I start. And and I do wish I can also finish making Ghar some day!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

The reason this space hasn't been updated for over a year is a long rambling wambling story full of happysadbadgoodanduglymysterioussinisterandsecret things, which I shall narrate in little bits over the next few posts. But until then, I have no words to tell you how happy I am to be back here! Ok, very happy :) Also, I'm in a really good mood because I drew and drew all day without anyone breathing deadlines, excel sheets and opinions down my neck. I love drawing and it makes me happier than anything else in the world. Except of course if I would suddenly and overnight become a singing-dancing prodigy. THAT would make me delirious. That day will come, I'm telling you. But until then, imma gonna get back to my good old drawing board. Goodnight yo! And see y'all soon.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Hi blog! I know I've been really boring, no new posts in a really long time. I'll try posting here more often. I've been super caught up working on my diploma film, which it's just SO much work, but work I love doing :) The picture above is a mood board for my film. My film's called Ghar (Home) and is finally taking shape. I'm so excited to see it finished! Will post animation line tests and other snippets from the film as and when they get done. All feedback welcome!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

I've been yabbarelling so much about Bechain Nagri in the past couple of posts, that I really should take this one as an excuse to tell you about it.

You know we're way past our graduation year right? teeheee, having taken up ambitious diploma projects that spilled into an whole extra year (and counting), me and a bunch of friends bid our goodbyes to hostel life and now live in a rented apartment close to campus. And if you've had to call your papa in the beginning of every month screeching 'papppaaaaa...account mein paisa dalo!', and if you've also been a big fat 22 year old something while doing this, you'll understand just how hard it is to make that damn call.

Sniff!

Anyway, but really, it was time we did something to pay our own electricity bills! And while that remains an excuse, we really wanted to have some fun and have something else to look forward to while working on our short films.

We love sketchbooks, and we love drawing, so we combined the two and made these really nice open spine sketchbooks with illustrated covers and launched them at our college fest, RGB. You can see pictures of those madness filled days here.

The prints to the left are my set of prints. They're drawings done on photographs I'd clicked on a trip to Rajasthan earlier this year. I really like photographs, quaint and empty spaces, and doodling. I enjoyed doing this series because I could throw all of it in.

The pixellated design at the bottom of the pile is on it's way! If you like what you see here, do join our facebook page and we'll keep you updated :)

So this year we celebrated desi design, the entire feel of the fest being very local, colourful, kitschy...and the juniors did a rather good job of peppering the campus with lifesize carrom boards, Rajnikant, and jhintak truck graphics.

I had total fun figuring the word play for this lot. Also, the entire desi thing went perfect with the idea, so llaalalaaaa!

Also, it was fun to have second round of tees printed this year :)

The character drawings are done by my friend Kc (who should be crunched under a sumo wrestlers butt for not updating his blog!)

So that's that! I wish I'd thought of taking pictures of people wearing the tees, but I forgot :P

I made this for a friend, who studied at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. His batch graduated this year, and wanted a batch tee as a keepsake.

So here are the designs of the front and the back, and then the entire bunch of EDI-ots wearing them at the bottom.

Don't ask me how a tower of hairy elephants found their way on a seriousass entrepreneurship tee :P

I do hope it works better than caricatures of Mallya, Tata, Birla and other fancy honchos they wanted me to stamp on the tee, something I vigorously shook my head in the negative to before they even finished their sentence.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

ok, so i'm being cheap and posting a birthday card i splashed up for a friend who's party i couldn't attend. he's a part of a studio called girgit (chameleon) and in some unexplainable way looks like the dude on the rainbow. it's been a reeeeaaly long time since i played around with watercolours, and by doing this instant card today reminded me of just how much i love watercolours!

ps: i just kinda realised, isn't it funny how this guy, and the elephant and gandhi in my previous two posts share the same grin? o_O note to self : draw. sad. people. from. time. to. time. angry shall also do, occasionally.

eeeeeeeeee! this place feels alien. this..this..ACT.feels.alien. THIS act of writing a blog post. it's been 223434888389f89jkfdo9u2394u594884848843oo3o332299 seconds since my last post no? i'm sorry, i've been spending too much time in the inside of my head. i've been keeping busy with two big things. my diploma film (i'll post something soon!) and bechain nagri (click click click), which along with tiresomeness and insane amounts of brain churning, has also been lots of fun! i made the above illustration for rejoicing the 500 likes we got on facebook today.

people were weird about me posting this saying 'beware, it might be offensive.' i really think indians should learn to laugh at themselves. there are lots of things in india i'd like to change. but that'll be another post..sometime. but i think our country is awesome.

i don't even know what to write. hmm..sssso. what all has happened since november 24th 2010? hmm. lets see. got rabbits (the ones that eat paper, and have special taste for my roald dahl books). got a new flatmate. launched bechain nagri. made tshirts that got printed! read a few books on entrepreneurship. had some madass parties. animated. learnt to cook reasonably. GOT GIFTED A MACBOOK PRO :D made a lot of trips to bombay. travelled to udaipur. read the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. danced like never before. got one haircut. rollerbladed. grew some perspective plants. made considerable progress in diploma film. converted one room in our house to a studiospace. wrote a lot of blogposts in my head. and forgot all about them. *grumble*

annnyyway. i should get myself to sleep. i'm going to share some stuff from my diploma film soon. and i will post more often now on. i have a mac and 24*7 internet connection. i should not be allowed to make excuses for not updating my blog.

also, my adopted brother has a blog. you'll find it at www.dredmystic.blogspot.com, check it out! he makes good stuff, sometimes :P

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

﻿

I'm documenting my diploma film, Ghar. It's not even made yet, and I'm documenting it. I detest institute formalities that require me to do this! Anyhow, while I'm at it anyway, thought I'd have some fun. The illustration is for the intro page, the doodle me will be jumping across pages expelling speech bubble blabber wherever required.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Saturday, July 24, 2010

This 18 year old chick I've never met featured me on her blog today, here. So of course I felt all honoured and all. With great honour comes great obligation, said Batman. So I made this for one for her posts which i found rather entertaining. To make any sense of the above illustration and read that rather entertaining post, you must go here. This chick Shreya is fun to read and makes me feel all 18 and awesome inside.

Afterthought : I don't remember having used this chick word so loosely since I was 18 :PAdmission: I've ripped the canteen image right off some dude's website! Like I'm that awesome!

Friday, July 23, 2010

Birthdaycardtype matter usually never takes up pixelspace on my blog, but i just couldnt stop myself from putting this one up! I've been grinning two hours nonstop since I got his reply, THATS how thrilled I am :) He's The Awesomest! *swoon*

So. I was speaking to Reddy the other day and he said I was lucky to have worked with someone as enthusiastic as Vaibhav. Hell yea :) He's this super huge animator but he'll look at at a barking dog and with utmost sincerity and respect ask, "Ji, aap kyon bhaunk rahe ho?" And so full exciting ideas always. I totally admire him. Internship at his studio last summer taught me not just important animation lessons, but life lessons as well. It was awesome just being around someone as full of life as him :) bhai, if you dont believe me, asssk the Pankaazz!

Friday, June 25, 2010

with a stomach full of hyperactive butterflies, a girl doodled these other two on her Wacom. She kept throwing anxious glances at the door every now and again, and then...it finally swung open. She instantly plunged her eyes back into her laptop screen and began colouring furiously, trying to look her busy and important best, until that all too familiar shadow loomed over her. Did shadows grow with age?

"Wow, you look pretty. I love your hair", said the shadow.

The girl looked up and smiled at an already grinning face.

Nope, shadows don't grow with age, they grow bigger with light, and smaller too. And sometimes, they disappear altogether.

Friday, June 4, 2010

So it's been a reeeaaaallyy long time since i posted anything on blog boo! "boo...boo...!" :P

The past few months have seen me going mad battling the writer's block, all in search for a story to animate for my final year film at NID. Stories have always meant something special, and i wouldnt dare start animating a story that didn't spell magic to me! And i think i've finally found the right thing. (a lot of credit goes to Suddy, who's been exercising his greys with me for hours over cappuccino, ginger chai and purple coloured cherry shake) The image here is a little model i made for the same story...

Monday, January 18, 2010

I've been in an abnormally clingy mood over the past couple of weeks, so much that even my boyfriend scoots at the sight of me. Sigh...looks like I'll have some travel to do inorder to sastify my..ahem..."clingy tendencies"!

Monday, January 11, 2010

Sunday, January 10, 2010

I hate this painting. I was done many many years ago, back in the days when i still stayed at home with my parents and had to study horrid science things from ugly looking books. I hated how nothing went my way and used to lock myself in my room to ignore all wierd things the world oustide expected me to do. I sat there and did nothing as time kept ticking. I'm so happy i don't live in that part of my life anymore, confined to things i didn't care two pennies about.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Several months ago, our college hosted a two day illustration workshop. The workshop conductors were a varied bunch of people and after they talked about themselves and showed us some work, it was for us to do something. Participants were split into groups and were given different briefs on things to illustrate for children. Our brief was to re-tell an existing story. I picked the story of Airavat, but I simply could not get myself to modify it by adding modern day things like a videogame or something in it. The story was good enough I felt, and until I could tweak the classic the way Roald Dalh did, I had no right to mess with it. So I decided to make it a fun read. Having always enjoyed reading rhymes, I thought I'd try one myself. So yeah, below the illustration is the rhyme version of the story, and the illustration...well thats the only one I managed to finish..heh heh..so much for the illustration workshop!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Friday, September 11, 2009

his name sounds nothing more than..well...a sound. "eipe!" not much of it comes out from him either. but this man sure is all the adjectives beginning with an E in the dictionary, excellent ones only. eccentric, emphatic, exciting, extraordinary, electric, educated (his own suggestion) were a few that went on the series of posters i did for what i knew was going to be a super-awesome-and-very-cool presentation. and about the rest, you can only be curious!

ps: eipe in these posters is a version of his own scary mary character for mtv. if you haven't seen it yet, goooooooooooo finnnnnnnd a caaaaaaaapy!

Thursday, September 3, 2009

PDINGPDOONG, a Claymation film of duration 3:25 minutes, saw it's first official screening in the Auditorium of the National Institute of Design on the 27th of August 2009.

So i'm sounding like this history textbook from school, but not without good reason! Taking into account all the hazaar horrid circumstances that gureilla warfared with us, i personally consider the ending of this film nothing short of an historical event! I'm glad it's over :) People seem to like it, and it helps to know that. I realised how big a part of a film the audience is. Sure we give a lot of importance to the typical aspects of a film like the shoot, the edit, sound etc etc...but we forget to acknowledge the audience.No audience, no film. ( I think.)(Boy, i hate making these heavy statements outside of my diary..they call for responsibility...big word...Gulp!)Anyway, i'm gonna rant on a lewttal more. Pdingpdoong is the first proper film we made, and starting a film from a seemingly insignificant floating around idealet to taking it to it's ready-to-be-showed-off-to-the-world stage is an extremely enriching experience. You're constantly bombarded with enlightments as also nasty disillusions. It involves tackling oh-so-many things all at once, materials, time, dates, people..(baths..) to name v. few. You make friends, you lose some. You develop fresh perspectives, you shed some. You pick and drop just so many things along the way. It's so much learning that you can't help but feel all grown up at the end of it! I've got to say, this film has been my favourite project so far!

Kc, too was doing his training with me at Vaibhav's this summer. Above is a character treatement we tried for Nickita, who copies her homework from Unnickuttan, who has a big time crush on the hot exchange student, Nickole, who mostly chooses to chill with Kanicka, who hates having a bench next to Manickchand ,who is always upto playing some prank or the other with his buddies, Anicket and Nickhil, who along with all others are 9th standard students of the reputed Shri Vidya Nicketan High School.

Rama miss again, but this time in her clay avatar. Except for her piggy nose, i like the way this ol' girl turned out! And if you've seen the animatic in the post below this, you'll know why we decided to give her the neck band!